In the fishing industry, the predominate method that is used to catch crabs, lobsters, and related species generally comprise lowering a trap into place in waters which are considered strategic fishing locations by fishermen. Such locations are generally those which the fishermen have come to know, by experience, have a greater predominance of the aquatic life species, which are their intended prey, in comparison to other areas. For instance, many areas in the Chesapeake Bay are noted for an abundance of several types of crabs. The coastal areas off of Massachusetts and Maine are noted for their abundance of lobsters. Various other areas of the world are likewise noted for their concentrations and abundance of such species of aquatic life. Generally, these areas comprise shallow waters in comparison to those waters which are further off shore where deep sea fishing, using hooks and nets, tends to be more predominate.
The traps that are used to catch crabs, lobster, and the like are generally of two different varieties. The first variety, used for recreational short-term trapping of, for example, crabs, comprises a metal basket structure with hinged side walls. The traps, including the sidewalls, are generally predominantly formed from wire or metal mesh materials to resemble, for example, cubes. The side walls are hinged, at their bottom edges to the floor of the trap, such that when the trap settles to the bottom of the designated fishing area, underwater, the sidewalls will fall open. Lines are attached to the upper edges of the sidewalls such that when the lines are drawn tautly, upwardly, the sidewalls will likewise be pulled upwardly, closing the trap and thus entrapping the crabs which have entered the trap. The lines from the movable sidewalls of such traps extend upwardly and are usually merged into a single line which in turn extends to the surface and is attached to, for example, a boat, a wharf, or a buoy.
Generally, recreational crab traps are placed in the water and left for a relatively short period of time, for example, time spans ranging from 15 or 30 minutes up to several hours. Such traps are normally checked by the fishermen at regular intervals so as to remove accumulated aquatic life and also to ensure that the bait placed in the traps is still secure and intact within those traps.
Commercial crab traps consist of metal frame covered with wire mesh; fitted with wire mesh cups for baiting or narrow entry ports of wire with a maze like interior. They are left for 24 hours or more to collect crabs. Traps used for catching, for example, lobsters, on the other hand, are designed for long-term use wherein the trap is placed on the bottom in the preferred section of water to be left for several days. Such traps, for example, may be constructed of wood, structured in an open lattice in the form of half of an axially divided cylindrical section, divided longitudinally. Such traps conceptually include a maze or labyrinth, i.e., of flexible netting material, through which the lobsters find their way into the inside of the trap. On the other hand, the maze or labyrinth provides a seemingly insurmountable block to the way out as the netting material is flexed to constrict the opening therethrough. The concept is that the lobster is attracted into the trap by the bait which is placed in the trap. Once in the trap, the lobster's concentration is on the bait material, which is a foodstuff for the lobster, and the motivation to leave the trap is much less than the attraction provided by the foodstuff. The diminished motivation, plus the labyrinth or maze system of the trap, generally are sufficient to prevent escape of the lobster. Both crab traps and lobster traps, as described above, are well known to the fishing industry and have been used for many years although new variations of both types are occasionally presented to the market. The types of traps used forms no part of the present invention.
As mentioned previously, for entrapping crabs, lobsters, and like species, a bait is used, the bait being secured within the trap generally to its bottom such that when the trap is placed o the bottom of a body of water, the bait cannot be reached by aquatic creatures without entering the trap. Predominately, fish, frozen or salted or chicken parts are used in traps to trap crabs, lobsters, and like species. For example, fish heads, fish skeletons, fish entrails and other waste portions of the fish comprise the by-products resulting from the preparation of fish prepared as food products for humans. These by-products are used as the bait in such traps.
Crabs, lobsters, and the like are attracted to the bait essentially by the sense of smell from the odor emanating from oils, fluids, and minute particles of the bait materials which are carried in suspension by the water currents passing through the traps. Aquatic life species which are essentially attracted to their respective foodstuffs by a sense of smell, i.e., olfactory stimulation, tend to have very sensitive and highly developed olfactory senses. Predominantly, these forms of aquatic life tend to be bottom feeders with relatively poor visual capabilities. The odors produced by the suspended materials emanating from the bait provide an olfactory stimulant to various species of aquatic life. Pains are taken by the fishermen to use bait specimens to which the aquatic life species, which are the intended prey, are most attracted. These, in most cases, tend to be those fish species which provide the natural foodstuffs for the crabs, lobsters, and like species which are to be trapped.
Unfortunately, the fish by-products which tend to provide attractive olfactory stimulants to aquatic life, in many cases are often unattractive to humans, being most disagreeable and highly offensive to the human sense of smell. The fish by-products used as bait are irregular and inconsistent in shape, size and, composition and have a very slippery or "slimy" texture; thus, are relatively difficult to handle and to securely attach in the traps. In use, such fish by-product bait materials initially provide a high degree of attractiveness to the intended prey. However, this attractiveness rapidly dissipates as the currents wash away the olfactory stimulants from the surface of the bait material. Once the olfactory stimulants disperse through increasingly broader areas of water, the concentration of stimulants becomes dissipated and the path of travel of those olfactory stimulants from the bait material becomes obscured. Thus, the crabs, lobsters, and like species are less able to follow the path to the source of the bait, resulting in a lessening of the probability of their entering the trap.
Recently, the fishing industry has learned to use an increasing amount of the fish by-products for commercial purposes other than bait. For example, fish meals and fish emulsion preparations are finding increasing commercial use as "organic" fertilizers. This, of course, has consequently decreased the ready supply and availability of such by-products for use as bait materials, and the cost has rapidly increased. In addition, such natural fish by-product baits are not always available as there is an increasing recognition in the fishing industry that there are preferred seasons for catching different varieties of aquatic life. There is also an increasing environmental awareness and concern for pollution that may be caused by the pieces and parts of fish by-product bait materials which tend to partially break off and float free from the traps, being left to fully decompose and thus provide sources of water pollution. Since the bodies in which aquatic creatures are trapped tend to be relatively shallow waters close to shore line and thus human habitation, there is a growing degree of environmental and health-related concern. In addition, it is traditionally believed the fully decomposed fish by-products tend to have the opposite effect from that of the bait by-product, that opposite effect being to repel the crabs, lobsters, and like species rather than to attract them.
Many alternative forms of bait have been proposed to the fishing industry. Artificial baits, in the form of lures have been widely used for many years. Examples of such lures are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,700,504 and 4,216,605. Fish traps using no bait have also been proposed; an example of such is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,251,943. Lures which use live bait have likewise been proposed as shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,020,580. The foregoing published references can all be classified as lures or "bait" having as their object the provision of visual stimulus to the fish which are the intended prey.
However, crabs, lobsters, and like species, which are bottom feeders, inhabit those areas of the water which see the least amount of light. Thus lures and bait which provide a visual stimulus are relatively ineffective in these areas. In addition, crabs, lobsters and like species do not naturally find their foods by way of visual stimulation. As mentioned above, they are attracted by smell or odor from their foodstuff which provide olfactory stimulation.
Consequently, a wide variety of types of artificial baits in the form of olfactory stimulants have been proposed. U.S. Pat. No. 2,555,088 shows a bag containing bait materials including slaughterhouse meat scrap tankage, dried slaughterhouse blood and animal entrails. The cloth bag of this reference is filled with bait material and placed onto a fish hook. U.S. Pat. No. 2,780,021 shows a variant of such a bait bag. U.S. Pat. No. 4,362,748 shows a method of producing pelletized bait which can be made to resemble, for example, maggots. These references are focused on providing olfactory stimulus to aquatic life with the object being to attract that aquatic life to a fish hook or to a trap.
Dried blood packaged in a plastic casing has also been proposed. Slits are formed in the sidewall of the plastic casing, enabling both infiltration of water and gradual seepage of the reconstituted blood from the package. Such a device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,047,975. An artificial fish food specifically focused on attracting lobster as well as other aquatic life has been formed by converting natural muscle tissue of various animals, including fish, into acylated myofibrillar protein. Such a bait material, also proposed as a food, for various aquatic creatures is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,903,304. The packaging of artificial "dough bait," in a "foraminous" material which is encased around the dough bait, is proposed by U.S. Pat. No. 3,958,357. Ground up, freeze-dried raw fish is packaged in a water permeable paper or cloth as described by U.S. Pat. No. 4,053,640.
A rather unique form of artificial bait is proposed by U.S. Pat. No. 4,731,247. In this reference, olfactory stimulants such as liquefied fish or other marine attractants, i.e., fish oils, anise, amino acids or synthetic attractants, as well as fish by-products, in a liquefied form, are proposed to be mixed with a water soluble cellulose ether composition in a plasticizing solvent to be formed into a solid material composite which may be used, as formed, or encased in a fiber such as fiberglass, cloth, plastic, or cellulose pulp to resemble a sausage in form.
PCT Patent Application Publication No. WO 86/06251 describes and illustrates a fish bait generally in the form of a sausage. The casing material is a tightly woven cotton or polyester fabric, which is porous and is said to permit some quantity of the oil from the ground fish, which is encased in the package, to leach out into the surrounding water. Conventional meat grinding and sausage stuffing equipment is sued to produce the product and the product is frozen for use as a fish hook bait principally for deepwater fishing.
It is not known from actual testing how effective any of the foregoing baits are in actual application. However, it is readily discernible from a reading of the foregoing published references that several tend to negatively criticize the effectiveness of their respective predecessors